Posts Tagged ‘funan’

When you think “cafe” these days, what do you think of? Food quality doesn’t really come to mind. Sure they may have a couple or two star dishes, but more likely than not, the entire premise of that cafe is built upon being Instagrammable. Visit once or twice, and you’ve basically covered their entire menu of dishes worth eating. So it is a breath of fresh air, what Tiong Bahru Bakery has done to its Funan and Raffles City outlets.

These two outlets are now known as Tiong Bahru Bakery Diner, and offer a “slow food” approach, which is most unexpected coming from a chain F&B establishment. Whatever you thought you knew about Tiong Bahru Bakery, Tiong Bahru Bakery Diner is so much more.

If you haven’t already heard, Funan is now open! Funan DigitalLife Mall is no more, and instead what you will find is a mall that is quite different from any other in Singapore. Here’s 5 things to look out for when you visit Funan, which I’m sure you will want to very soon. Or you can skip all these and just watch the video for a quick walk through of Funan on their opening day on 28 June 2019.

Oh dear, certainly Cafe de Amigo is no longer the Amigo of my colleagues. We paid Cafe de Amigo a visit today, and all of them concluded that they would never ever visit this restaurant ever again.

I know I seldom write such harsh reviews, and in fact, I think I was the only one who was quite okay with the meal. All 5 of us ordered the lunch set meal of $13.90++, which comprises of complimentary bread, starters, mains and coffee/tea.

Complimentary bread : – All 5 of us agreed that the slices of baguette was totally inedible. It was as tough and chewy as an old boot. The butter looking thing, I suspect wasn’t butter since it was whitish and very light in weight for some reason. Cafe de Amigo should have dispensed with serving the complimentary bread if they didn’t have something better, because this really was the catalyst to the negativity.

Starters (Soup): – Those who had the soup said it was too creamy…

Starters (Prawn Tempura): – I had the Prawn Tempura on a bed of lettuce. I thought this was quite tasty. The Prawn Tempura was freshly fried and laid on a bed of crunchy lettuce. After the fiasco of the stale bread, I was half expecting wilted lettuce, but they tasted pretty fresh.

Mains (Grilled Garoupa):- Those who had this said that the fish was okay but the bed of fennel and other vegetables beneath the fish tasted as if they had been stashed in the refrigerator for far too long.

Mains (Roasted Chicken):- I was the only one to order the 1/2 Roasted Chicken. I quite enjoyed it even amidst the comments coming from the fish eaters. The mashed potato and shredded vegetables also tasted good and I used them to mop up all the chicken gravy. The chicken was on the small side though, definitely not 1/2 a roasted chicken, it was probably 1/3 of a roasted chicken.

Well, considering that Cafe de Amigo used to be so much better, this was a step down for me and a horrible experience for my colleagues. I hear there was a management change some time ago, hence the difference in standards? Wonder where the old chef went? The news has travelled wide though. Cafe de Amigo used to be full during lunch time, but today there were about only 3 or 4 tables occupied.

I guess if I ever desire to dine at Cafe de Amigo again, I’ll be dining alone.

Like this:

I’ve eaten at Bishamon several times, mainly due to convenience’s sake. It isn’t the type of place I would actively mark down in my oh so packed schedule as a place to revisit on x date, if you know what I mean. It seems that they have also recently made changes to their menu.

Previously, you could order mini salads, such as sashimi and avocado salad for about $4.80, which I thought was a good price. Coupled with their mini sized ramen portions, the amount of food just filled the gap. It now seems that their new menu has done away with the mini sized salads. The full-sized sashimi salad now costs about $8.50.

The mini ramen portions are still available at about $8. I think this is the perfect sized portion if you want to still be able to try their side dishes.

Ordering ramen can be quite confusing if you don’t know the terminology. The pictures show similar looking bowls of noodles. A friend once told me how to unlock the mystery, which I will attempt to address here. It seems the main difference between all of them is in how the stock is prepared. There is chicken stock, pork stock and chicken and pork stock. For each of these, you can then continue to choose if you want a salt flavour (shio), soya sauce flavour (shoyu) or miso flavour (miso). These are the main choices but each restaurant may obviously try to impart their own uniqueness to the broth. You are on your own there.

All I know is that I like the Tonkotsu stock with miso, which in my opinion gives the most impactful flavour. Miso sounds mild, especially when you associate it with the mild miso soup. For some reason, this is not so in the context of ramen broths.

I ordered the Mini Sapporo Tonkotsu Ramen – $7.80. I think the broth is quite flavourful. You can taste the flavours of the simmered ingredients in the broth. So many other places serve ramen broth that just tastes like salty water. The noodles are also bouncy, similar to the texture of wanton mee, which is exactly how I like it. Still, as mentioned previously, my favourite ramen restaurants are Marutama Ramen and Ippudo.

Bishamon also uses the chewy type of ramen for some of its other dishes, so if you don’t like those, be sure to order the Sapporo Tonkotsu Ramen, or ask the waiter if it is possible to get the bouncy noodles instead.

And because I ordered the mini sized ramen, I still had space to indulge in a bowl of agedashi tofu ($4.20 if I recall correctly)